For Tom Ford, becoming a widower and a single father in the latter half of 2021 has brought about a deep reevaluation of his personal and professional life.
Ford’s husband, journalist Richard Buckley, died in September at the age of 72. The couple, married since 2014, had been in a relationship for 35 years.
In a new interview with WSJ Magazine, Ford shared how his daily routine has changed in the months since Buckley’s death after a long illness.
“It’s been hard after 35 years, very hard,” the designer and filmmaker said. “I keep thinking, oh, God, I have to call Richard, or I need to send him a note about this. And he’s not here.”
As is the case with many single parents, Ford has had to take on new responsibilities as the primary caretaker of the couple’s 9-year-old son, Jack.
“Until recently, I had Richard to help me out in the mornings,” he said. “It’s been a little bit of a struggle the last month because he would normally get [Jack’s] breakfast on school days while I was getting dressed.”
“It’s a challenge to get him up, dressed, get his lunch made, get his lunch packed, get his breakfast done, get all my things done, and then I drive him to school at 7:45,” Ford added. “But it also means I’m at my office by 8:10, so I get a good start to the day.”
In a 2016 appearance on The Jess Cagle Interview, Ford explained how he and Buckley met by chance in an elevator in 1986.
“Our eyes locked and within a month we were living together,” he said at the time. “By the time that elevator landed on the ground floor I thought, ‘You’re the one.’ That’s it. Click. Sold. It was literally love at first sight.”
Ford is currently promoting a new book, “Tom Ford 002.” In it, he chronicles the launch of his eponymous fashion brand and recent pivot to Hollywood filmmaking as the director of A Single Man and Nocturnal Animals.
And speaking of films, Ford recently caught a screening of House of Gucci and likened the experience to having “lived through a hurricane” in an essay he published in AirMail last week.
“Was it a farce or a gripping tale of greed? I often laughed out loud,” he wrote, “but was I supposed to?”
“In her often over-the-top portrayal of Patrizia Gucci, her accent migrates occasionally from Milan to Moscow,” he said. “But who cares? Her performance is spot-on.”